Financial resentment in marriage

[Tetley08]

Our current situation is as follows....
My husband pays all of the household bills & mortgage, he has approx 25 % of his take home monthly salary remaining as his disposable income.
I earn significantly less, I'm studying 1 day a week and starting up a new business. My work isn't very well paid, and although I hope to earn more soon, it's never going to be a career that i earn a great deal from. However I deliberately chose to do this as the hours are flexible, I enjoy it & I can be around more for our son. My husband encouraged me to study and says that he doesn't want me to give up on my business. My husband works long hours and often travels for work which means that during the week 100% of the childcare falls on my shoulders. I do all of the housework.
My husband seems to resent me for not contributing financially. I don't pay any of the monthly bills but all of my money goes towards household expenses like food, tennis lessons for our son, our one family summer holiday, new school shoes - ad hoc things. If I fancy a new top or something (providing it's not too expensive- from New Look or the equivalent), I'll usually buy it, but I don't have anywhere near the amount of disposable income that he does. I get comments like 'I support you' like he's funding my lifestyle or something. He loves hammering home the point that he 'pays all the bills'. I don't know what to do as this is really driving a massive wedge between us. I could go back to my previous line of work which I did before having our son. We'd be much better off financially and I'd have considerably more disposable income. My husband wouldn't be able to make comments about him paying all the bills & maybe he'd respect me more? However I wouldn't be able to spend as much time with our son which would make me very sad, I don't think I'd enjoy it, and he would have to pick up 50% of the childcare during the week - i think this would make his already very stressful job much more stressful and to be honest I can imagine that he'd say he would do 50% but in reality it wouldn't work & I'd end up doing the majority of it.
AIBU is he right to feel resentful towards me?

Op also pays for food and I imagine clothes for ds Sheldon.

What does he do with the 25%? I think it's outrageous you have to scrimp when he's got money and any left over money should be jointly held.

I have a smaller disposable income compared to my husband and I don't think it is a problem, I work part time, he works full time, that's my choice, I took a drop in salary without the intention of my DH topping me up.

We have a joint account where everything important comes out of, I pay in less than him, (him 1.5K and me 1.1K), can you do something like this, and pay for food, holidays and lessons out of this account as well as bills, that way he can see where the money is going and doesn't have the impression that you are not contributing. By doing it this way you also are contributing to the bills and he is contributing to the food etc.

Sorry should have also said though that him banging on about paying all the bills makes him sound like a bit of a twunt.

I don't work just one day a week - I don't know where people got that from. I study 1 day a week and work as much as I can. Some weeks that's 2 days, some weeks that 4 days but it's all around school hours and holidays. I don't want or like being so financially reliant on my husband, I want to bring in more money but it takes time to build a business.
I never would have pursued this career if I didn't have my husbands approval but I do understand that circumstances change & people are entitled to change their minds.

Thanks for all of your opinions. It has been useful getting different perspectives on this.

TBH from what you're saying, you're not valuing yourself either and are putting undue pressure on yourself to earn more. In time, this will come. What is the issue with using some of the money he brings in so you can spend more time with your child? It is not about being beholden to him. It's about doing what's right for you all as a family unit. Refusing to accept money or for dh to allow access to a proportion of dhs salary for reasons of unsatisfactory income or pride seem strange to me.

So say op's dh is no longer happy to be earning lions share. Well than suggest to him that you go back full time but he will have to do 50% of the childcare and housework. I bet his attitude would change pretty quick.
I had similar with my dh. I earn very little doing a small wfh business. Dh went though a stage of questioning what I was spending his money on
So I started looking for jobs. I saw a night shift job which I thought would work. Suddenly he wasn't so keen and kept saying but can you guarantee you will be back etc etc.
We are ticking along nicely although I an now starting to resent how little he does at home. He pretty much does nothing during the week and not much at weekends. Whilst I do club runs cook washing up and. Bedtime e wry evening.

School hours is not much though by the time drop off, collection and a lunch break are taken out of it.

You also say even when it's up and running it's never going to make much so is it even worth pursuing knowing your partner wants help with the financial burden. Or do his wants not count?

There wouldn't be much childcare needed around school hours if you were to start off with a 9-5 job. Those hours can be fitted in around his and he may want to cut back knowing he can do so as you are sharing the load.

I think you can safely ignore someone who considers all domestic labour and childcare to be "luxuries".

That's a sweeping statement and frankly not true. I take offence at this as a chronically ill person, who up until 3 months ago had a cleaner.

But you are saying that you need a cleaner because you are ill- not because you work.

The answer is clearly been stated upthread: OP, you need to sit down together and agree exactly how you both want to manage childcare, household chores and finances. Each of you needs to explain your issues and concerns, and maybe come to a new arrangement.

I understand the posters who say he wouldn't want to take more responsibility for childcare and household chores, but I also think there are legitimate pressures on a main earner that can be overlooked. The problem is the all-or-nothing of it. The long hours mean the main wage earner may not be able to spend much time with the growing children. For the main wage-earner, there is always a risk of failure at work and ultimately losing your job. There is no safety net if the second income is non-existent or small. That can cause a resentment to build up for the main earner, which is not best tackled by issuing an ultimatum at home.

At home the vast majority of work is boring, never-ending and largely thankless because the wage-earner is often unaware of the time and effort expended on it.

Talking it through may just give you both a better perspective on what the other is going through.

Yes perdita but some people work and don't have good health. That was my point. And I do work for myself to some extent. Just not all the time.

If 75% of his income covers the bills alone then presumably he isn't earning very much...how would he also pay half the childcare and food/activities everything else you pay?

DH & I split our money pretty much the same.

He pays the mortgage, house insurance, and Utilities (gas, water, electric, and out phone/tv package) He also pays for his own cars insurance/tax/mot/petrol.

my money pays the Council Tax, Heating Insurance, Pet insurance, my cars tax/mot/insurance/petrol and the weekly groceries.

However, we both share the disposable income and if one of us is short its no issue to ask the other for some money or to pay for something.

If your DH is being an arsehole, then you have issues.. this arrangement only works if you're both on board.

SAHP do not 'do little' FGS! Some really bitter sounding comments here. If the OP's partner is willing to do half at home, she is prepared to do half in the workplace. That is fair enough. It doesn't mean it is the best thing for their family, but she isn't trying to make him into some sort of wage slave.

Of course "wage earners" are aware of how much domestic work there is.

Some of them are just throwbacks who think that women exist to do that work for free because otherwise they will be raped or beaten.

Proper men worth being married to don't leave all childcare to anyone, no matter how busy they are.

Because they love their children and understand that the work involved in looming after them is what it is to be a parent.

They also don't whine about thrir partner's reduced earning potential if they encouraged them to decrease to look after thrir own child.

And I'm sorry, OP, I hadn't realised you were doing as much paid work as you are - sounds like either way, you are doing your fair share.

I understand where both of you are coming from. So often the mother chooses to return to work p/t without really discussing it and the father would maybe prefer for them to return f/t and put the kid in nursery.

You basically need to come to an agreement and write down a budget. We do all money into the joint account and all bills settled with that. We then have a little bit of spending money in our own accounts to pay for what we like without judgement. I think that's fair.

He fails the granfather test: wpuld either of my grandfathers (both born before 1927) have thought he was a decent man?

No and No.

He is neither esrning enough to run a household on his own, nor doing the domestic work required if you need your wife to earn a wage.

To demand your wife earn money while you exploit her labour for 100% of housework and childcare fails the 1927 test.

Shite man then, shite man now.

I don't get why married couples don't get both sets of wages paid in to the joint account? All bills paid out from there and a card each for spending reasonable (as defined by an agreement between them) amounts on themselves, their children and picking up the shopping on the way home.

The bills get paid, by the household income, not the individuals. And there is true equality and trust.

Why do people do it separately? You agreed to be joined in marriage, but not financially? If OH was not keen to do this, should it be alarm bells instead of wedding bells?

I earn more than DH btw and we share everything equally.

Doin I love that test, going to tell my friends about this!

DH earns a ridiculous amount compared to my salary (Management Consultant versus teacher). We both work long hours but I have much more time to juggle the DCs while he works far longer hours and has less time off throughout the year. I handle almost everything to do with childcare because that's how his job needs to work, but he does everything in his power to be home at least two evenings each week to pick them up from school and make dinner, take them to clubs, clean the house, walk the dog and generally contribute so it doesn't all fall on me. I love that he does it because we're a unit and a unit only functions if everybody is aiming for the same end goal. Your DH sounds as though he's resentful of your goal; unless something changes that resentment isn't going to disappear. It will eat him up and ruin things for you all if it's allowed to fester.

Sit down with him then, and start to split out the responsibilities so you can go back to your job.

You're concentrating on the fact that you get to spend time with your son, but the fact of the matter is that if you aren't able to be as flexible, then he will have to be more flexible.

It was a watershed moment in my relationship when I was offered a well paid job and asked DP whether he was going to take drop-offs or pickups now that I wasn't going to be able to do both any more.

DoinIt . Love it.!!

Bob - I totally agree. There is less to argue about if everything goes into a joint account.

I don't get why married couples don't get both sets of wages paid in to the joint account?

Neither do I . Share a house, she children, share a bank account. I couldn't live with anyone who had their own money.

DoinIt. Further to your post of 15.35, these men also shouldnt complain full stop when their wives/partner's income reduces as they chose to have a child with them. It is well know having children can (but not necessarily does) have an impact on a woman's earning potential.